Identifying changes in the drivers of ecosystem services: Socioeconomic changes underlie reduced provision of pollination service.

The impact of land use changes on ecosystem services (ES) or Nature's Contributions to People (NCP) is relatively well-known, but the influence of socioeconomic changes on ES remains less clear, especially at larger spatial scales. Multiple socioeconomic factors influence the demand for a service (i.e.

High frequency of ambophily in a Brazilian campos de altitude.

Background And Aims: Ambophily, an intriguing pollination system in which plant species present adaptations to both biotic and abiotic pollination, has been scarcely reported. Most studies have been conducted with a single or few related species from wind-pollinated genera. We here assess for the first time the frequency of ambophily at the community-level.

Pollinator-mediated facilitation alleviates pollen limitation in a plant-hummingbird network.

Facilitation and competition among plants sharing pollinators have contrasting consequences for plant fitness. However, it is unclear whether pollinator-mediated facilitation and competition may affect pollen limitation (potential contribution of pollination to fitness) in pollination networks. Here, we investigated how pollinator sharing affects pollen limitation in a tropical hummingbird-pollinated community marked by facilitation.

Pollinator-Mediated Indirect Effects on Plant Fecundity Revealed by Network Indices.

AbstractIndirect effects arise when one species influences how another species interacts with a third. Pollinator-mediated indirect effects are widespread in many plant communities and are often not restricted to plant species pairs. An analytical framework does not exist yet that allows for the evaluation of indirect effects through shared pollinators in a community context as well as their consequences for plant fitness.

Pollination generalization and reproductive assurance by selfing in a tropical montane ecosystem.

Pollination and reproduction are important processes for understanding plant community dynamics. Information regarding pollination and reproduction is urgent for threatened ecosystems, such as tropical montane ecosystems. In tropical mountains, pollination patterns are expected to conform to the reproductive assurance theory (due to low pollinator activity) and old, climatically buffered and infertile landscapes (OCBIL) theory (due to restricted plant range size).

A sophisticated case of division of labour in the trimorphic stamens of the (Leguminosae) flower.

Buzz-pollinated pollen flowers have pollen as the primary resource for pollinators and must deal with a conflict between the exploitation of pollen grains by bees and pollination success. It has been hypothesized that heterostemony allows division of labour between stamens as a solution to the pollen dilemma. To test the division of labour hypothesis, we chose , which has a trimorphic androecium and analysed androecium development, pollen grain release mechanisms and visitor behaviour.

Meaningful Words in Crowd Noise: Searching for Volatiles Relevant to Carpenter Bees among the Diverse Scent Blends of Bee Flowers.

Olfactory cues constitute one of the most important plant-pollinator communication channels. Specific chemical components can be associated with specific pollinator functional groups due to pollinator-mediated selection on flower volatile (FV) emission. Here, we used multivariate analyses of FV data to detect an association between FVs and the worldwide distributed pollinator group of the carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp.

Intrafloral Color Modularity in a Bee-Pollinated Orchid.

Flower color has been studied in different ecological levels of organization, from individuals to communities. However, it is unclear how color is structured at the intrafloral level. In bee-pollinated flowers, the unidirectional gradient in color purity and pollen mimicry are two common processes to explain intrafloral color patterns.

Effect of heterospecific pollen deposition on pollen tube growth depends on the phylogenetic relatedness between donor and recipient.

Co-flowering plant species may interact via pollinators leading to heterospecific pollen transfer with consequences for plant reproduction. What determines the severity of heterospecific pollen effect on conspecific pollen performance is unclear, but it may depend on the phylogenetic relatedness of the interactors (pollen donors and recipient). The heterospecific pollen effect might also depend on the extent to which plants are exposed to heterospecific pollen over ecological or evolutionary timescales.

Flower colour within communities shifts from overdispersed to clustered along an alpine altitudinal gradient.

Altitudinal gradients are interesting models to test the effect of biotic and abiotic drivers of floral colour diversity, since an increase in UV irradiance, decrease of pollinator availability and shifts from bee- to fly-pollination in high relative to low altitudes are expected. We tested the effect of altitude and phylogeny, using several chromatic and achromatic colour properties, UV reflectance and pollinators' discrimination capacity (Apis mellifera, Bombus terrestris, Musca domestica and Eristalis tenax), to understand the floral colour diversity in an alpine altitudinal gradient. All colour properties were weakly related to phylogeny.

The potential indirect effects among plants via shared hummingbird pollinators are structured by phenotypic similarity.

Plant species within communities may overlap in pollinators' use and influence visitation patterns of shared pollinators, potentially engaging in indirect interactions (e.g., facilitation or competition).